BLACKSBURG – Buoyed by eight sports who participated in team postseason competition and strong performances by the track and field and wrestling programs, the Virginia Tech Athletics Department finished in 28th place in the Learfield Directors' Cup competition, as announced Friday by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) – its best finish ever.
Schools earn points in the Learfield Directors' Cup competition based on where respective teams finish at NCAA Championship events, along with any bowl appearances made by a school's football program. The NCAA doesn't sponsor the bowl system, but the Learfield Directors' Cup still factors in bowl appearances as part of its points system for the competition.
Virginia Tech finished with 735.50 points, also its best showing in the Learfield Directors Cup competition. Tech's previous best finish in this competition came in 2014-15 when the school came in 35th with 640.50 points.
Individuals from the Tech men's and women's track and field programs led the way, as the men's track and field team accumulated 140 points combined during the indoor and outdoor seasons, while the women's track and field team finished with 127.5 points combined. The quartet of Vincent Ciattei, Greg Chiles, Patrick Joseph and Neil Gourley bolstered the men's point total by winning the national championship in the distance medley relay event at the NCAA Division I Indoor Track and Field Championships held in early March in College Station, Texas. The Tech men finished a program-best fourth at that meet, while the women's team, behind first-team All-Americans Rachel Pocratsky and Eszter Bajnok, came in 10th at the NCAA's outdoor meet.
Tech programs that qualified for NCAA team competition included men's basketball, men's and women's cross country (women's regional appearance counted), men's soccer, lacrosse, women's golf, and men's tennis. The football team's Camping World Bowl appearance also contributed toward the Hokies' point total.
Teams do not qualify for NCAA postseason competition in the sports of men's and women's track and field, men's and women's swimming and diving, and wrestling. Individuals who qualify for NCAA postseason competition in these sports, however, earn points that count as the team total.
Tech's wrestlers contributed 70.5 points toward the school's Learfield total, led by Jared Haught's second-place finish and All-America performances by David McFadden and Zack Zavatsky that paced the Hokies to an eighth-place finish overall at the NCAA Wrestling Championships.
Other programs that contributed at least 50 points to the Learfield total: men's cross country (54), lacrosse (53) and men's soccer (50). Head coach John Sung guided the lacrosse team to its first NCAA appearance and subsequently first NCAA win, while first-team All-ACC choices Marcelo Acuna and Ben Lundgaard led the men's soccer team to a second straight NCAA appearance.
Stanford won the Directors' Cup with a combined 1,442 points, followed by UCLA (1,326) and Florida (1,216). The top ACC school was Florida State, who finished in ninth place with 1,038.75 points. There are four Learfield Sports Directors' Cup awards, one to honor the institution with the best overall athletics program in each of the NCAA's Divisions I, II and III, and the NAIA.
The Learfield Sports Directors' Cup was started in 1993-94 and was developed as a joint effort between NACDA and USA Today.
